On Mon, 1 Jun 2009 22:54:31 -0500, "Nunya Bidnits"
> wrote:

>In news >Desideria > typed:
>> Y'all know I'm a grilling newbie, and I purchased Steven Raichlen's
>> "How to Grill" book because it was my impression that his books are
>> highly recommended.
>>
>> I'll agree that his how-to techniques are helpful. But does anyone
>> else find his recipes a bit over-fussed-with?
>>
>> For instance, the first thing I made with his recipes was hamburgers
>> with garlic butter inside, so you've got a fat burger with something
>> in the center. Admittedly, my garlic butter was only about
>> half-frozen, but when I put them on the grill I had terrible flareups,
>> to the point where the outsides were black and the insides were still
>> raw--and that was quite a bit after the time that Steven said to cook
>> them on each side.
>>
>> Today I tried his basic (?) chicken breast recipe. Calls for
>> sprinkling sea or kosher salt, cracked peppercorns and hot pepper
>> flakes on both sides of each breast, then pressing chopped garlic and
>> chopped rosemary onto each, then marinating them for 30 to 60 minutes
>> in lemon juice and olive oil.
>>
>> Again, I made a mistake in cooking them today instead of yesterday, so
>> they marinated for a bit less than 24 hours--but until now, I always
>> found that the more marinating, the better. I grilled the breasts and
>> tried some, and I can't even taste the chicken, much less the
>> smoke!!!! The flavor is so intense that I have to eat slices of the
>> breasts in salad to be able to handle them.
>>
>> What's the opinion here? Am I causing these problems myself, or are
>> Raichlen's recipes too zesty for even a zest-lover like myself?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>>
>> Desideria
>
>He's not my favorite TV cooking host by quite a ways. I also find his
>recipes overblown, incorrectly seasoned, not well thought out, or lacking in
>the fine details. And notice that if you watch his shows carefully he's not
>exactly achieving pristine well-practiced results all the time.
>
>I agree his seasonings are sometimes over the top, although I did enjoy the
>recent steak episode which featured Argentinian style steak, served with
>chimichurri, but that was only because he showed how to make the stuff. But
>beyond that, nobody has one of those smartass special gaucho grills, so
>demonstrating Argentinian style steak on an obscure, odd, rare, and
>expensive piece of equipment is pretty much a waste of time compared to
>showing how one might do it on a common home grill. I guess it's cool that
>he has forty-eleven different cookers and grills scattered around the yard
>with smoke coming out of every one of them, so he can play little boy gaucho
>if he wants to on TV, but the everyday person who might watch the show to
>pick up some tips isn't going to have all that crap.
>
>And his shows are about grilling and barbecueing, which IMO means it should
>be concentrating on simple direct flavors of foods as they are enhanced by
>cooking on an open fire or in a pit, but he is forever smothering everything
>with so much weird sauces and seasonings that it just doesn't seem like he
>remembers what the shows were about in the first place. I'm all for knowing
>how meat is grilled in different ethnic environments, but I don't buy into
>the notion that authentic ethnic grilled foods are produced in a way such
>that the seasonings and sauces obscure the basic flavors of the food being
>grilled. He doesn't enhance foods with his seasonings and ingredients, he
>hides them.
>
>And he's got a pompous, know-it-all attitude and hoity-toity demeanor that
>puts me off, frankly, especially since his execution and some of his recipes
>really don't match up to his arrogance. That "vacationing with the Duke in
>the south of France" snottiness doesn't do much for me. I can't watch his
>program without the words "arrogant twit" crossing my mind multiple times.
>
>The burger stuffed with garlic butter is just stupid. I've tried stuffing
>burgers and it's downright difficult, and that's without using ingredients
>that are going to melt away, leave a big hole in the middle of the burger,
>and make your grill flame on. Stuffing a burger has a built in pitfall since
>all burgers tend to shrink inwards on the grill, and you need to compensate
>starting off by putting a depression in the center of the burger after you
>mold it, so as to get a nice uniform thickness in the finished result
>without the edges splitting. It's kinda hard to stuff something that needs
>to be thinner in the center than at the edges. So stuffing the burger and
>producing something that doesn't fall apart or otherwise get weird is a real
>engineering challenge. I've only had luck stuffing them with ingredients
>that didn't melt away, and than includes using little or no cheese in the
>stuffing. However a nice mix of chopped mushrooms, seasoned bread crumbs,
>and grilled onions is always nice.
>
>I take it from your comments that the garlic butter was supposed to be
>frozen going in. So what does he expect, that it won't melt when the burger
>is cooked, or maybe that nobody will mind if the center of the burger is
>cold greasy tartare? Cripes. I didn't see the butter stuffed burger
>demonstrated on TV, nor have I read the recipe, but I don't think I need to,
>it's obviously a really stupid idea and he's wasted your time and money. And
>with a buttload of butter dripping out of the burgers, he's probably made a
>nice mess for you as well.
>
>Now as far as the marinade, well, that one's on you. Those are strong
>marinating flavors, and after an hour with mashed in garlic and rosemary,
>and lemon juice and olive oil, that meat should be seasoned to the max. It's
>important to realize that acidic components in marinades cook foods
>chemically, altering not just their taste but also their texture. I would
>have expected pretty much what you described when leaving chicken in such a
>strong marinade for that long.
>
>But that doesn't change my opinion that Raichlen's a DH.
>
>MartyB in KC

*snort!* Thanks, Marty. The guy is so highly-recommended, and I think
even here folks have suggested getting his books---but I was rather
surprised at how unimpressive I found his recipes. Frankly, I'm gonna
stick to just plain old pepper and salt (maybe garlic or onion if I've
feeling adventurous) on my burgers in the future. It just didn't need
all that 'stuff' added.

Speaking of, I also tried his roast corn recipe with garlic butter. I
think corn is a HELL of a lot better just grilled plain, with maybe a
little butter added after. It was okay, but it wasn't as stellar as
plain old ripe corn on the grill. In his recipe, you slather the
garlic butter on before grilling, and keep basting the corn with the
butter and turning it frequently. Really fussy, to my mind.

I'll try out the links from Cleatarrior, because I'm curious. But I'm
sure going to be a lot more cautious in the future. Maybe the salt and
pepper on the chicken, or the lemon and oil and less salt and pepper,
and I think no more red pepper flakes.

It's tasty, but it ain't chicken.


Desideria